Uber

Is Uber safe to use?

For getting from A to B, Uber is about as safe as a licensed taxi, and safer in one respect: every trip is logged, with the driver's name, photo and route. Uber says more than 99.9% of US trips end without any safety report. The app's record on data is weaker. Uber paid intruders to stay quiet about a 2016 breach, was fined €290 million in the Netherlands in 2024, and is fighting thousands of lawsuits from passengers who say drivers assaulted them. We score it 46/100.

What Uber knows about you

Uber needs your precise location, phone number and payment card to work, and its Apple privacy label shows it collects far more. Purchases, contact info, search history, identifiers, usage data and "other data" may be used to track you across apps and websites owned by other companies. Linked to your identity are precise location, payment info, messages with drivers and support, and photos.

The 2016 breach and how Uber handled it

This is the event that still shapes Uber's security score. In November 2016 intruders used an access key that an Uber engineer had posted on a code-sharing site to download unencrypted files from Uber's cloud storage: more than 25 million names and email addresses and 22 million names and phone numbers, according to the FTC. The driver's licence numbers of about 607,000 US drivers were also taken.

Uber paid the intruders $100,000 through its bug bounty programme and did not tell customers or the FTC until November 2017. In September 2018 it paid $148 million to settle with all 50 US states and Washington, DC, and accepted a stricter FTC order that requires it to hand over every report from its third-party privacy audits and keep records of bug bounty reports involving consumer data.

Fines and lawsuits since

On 26 August 2024 the Dutch data protection authority fined Uber €290 million, its largest fine. It found that for more than two years Uber sent European drivers' data to the US, including ID documents, taxi licences, location data, photos and in some cases criminal and medical records, without proper transfer safeguards. Uber said it would object. The case concerns drivers, not riders, but it says something about how the company treats personal data.

In April 2025 the FTC sued Uber, alleging it signed people up to its Uber One subscription without consent, overstated the savings and made cancelling hard. Several states later joined an amended complaint. These are allegations, and Uber denies them.

Rider safety

Uber's most recent US Safety Report we could confirm covers 2019 and 2020. It counted 3,824 reports in the five most serious categories of sexual assault, from non-consensual kissing to rape, over about 2.1 billion trips. The rate of reports was 38% lower than in 2017–2018. In 2020 there were 141 reports of rape. Uber said riders, not drivers, were the accused party in 43% of sexual assault reports.

The legal picture changed in 2026. A federal jury in Phoenix found Uber liable in February in the first bellwether case, awarding $8.5 million to a passenger raped by her driver in 2023, while clearing it on two other claims. Uber said it would appeal. Thousands of similar claims are pending in the federal multidistrict litigation.

How to ride more safely

1. Match the plate, car and driver photo before you open the door, and ask the driver who they are picking up rather than giving your name.
2. Use the PIN verification setting if it is available, so the trip cannot start until you read out a code.
3. Share your trip status with someone you trust, especially late at night.
4. Sit in the back, and use the in-app emergency button if something feels wrong.
5. Contact support only through the app. Phone numbers for "Uber support" found through search ads are a common scam route.

How we scored it

Regulatory record (28) carries the €290 million Dutch fine, the $148 million breach settlement and the pending FTC case. Privacy (40) reflects how much of the label is about tracking. Scams and harmful content (50) reflects the documented assault risk against a very large number of trips. For a similar trust question, compare Airbnb, where you also meet strangers arranged by an app.